


Backcountry Soundtrack

by harcourt



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abduction, Captivity, Coercion, Gen, Injury, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Road Trip, Stockholm Syndrome undertones, longfic_bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-14 22:12:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2204910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harcourt/pseuds/harcourt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Deadpool kidnaps Clint off a battlefield and takes him on a roadtrip. A shooting roadtrip. OK, fine. A shooting <i>people</i> roadtrip. Don't be so cranky about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The problem with Wade was that he was completely fucking crazy. It wasn't even that Clint didn't like him. In a lot of ways he was like Tony--busy with some shit no one else could follow, prone to talking to himself and with an ego the size of Chicago.

They could have been buds if it wasn't for the abduction and the shooting and the fact that Clint was bleeding out onto the backseat of his car. 

That last was putting Wade out a lot more than it was Clint. Clint was happily in a state of numb, floaty blood loss. Distantly alarmed, but not much more. Sleepy. He'd be out already if Wade wasn't ranting about upholstery and carpet shampoo and how he never had any change when he wanted to use the industrial vacuum down at the gas station.

"Ugh," Clint said. He'd meant to say _shut the hell up_. Also, _give me back to SHIELD_ and something cool like _the Avengers will Avenge me_. But then it wasn't that clear whose fault this mess was. It was even possible that _Natasha_ had shot him, and that might make Avenging a little socially awkward if not straight out tactically iffy.

Clint suspected that if that was the case, his Avengence would end as an argument in the kitchen, an extended sulk involving all parties, and then as another entry on the list of things they hadn't really thought through and would never mention again in order to save face.

He hoped Wade would dump his remains somewhere where they would be found. Like on Tony's doorstep. That would show them. He hoped it would be messy. He hoped it would _smell_.

"Don't be so frowny," Wade tut-ed, "You probably have a shiny Cadillac somewhere, courtesy of Iron Stark. All you uptowners are the same. Think you can just bleed all over my car because it's a Honda? Let me tell you, me and this baby have been places you couldn't imagine. Open roads. Adventures. Girls in the backseat."

Wade had stolen the car about ten seconds after he'd stolen _Clint_. Clint decided not to say so. He tried to put pressure on the wound, but that hurt and made Wade's red and black mask blur and waver like a mirage. 

And then Wade said, "Buckle up kiddies, it's road trip time," and actually clicked the seatbelts into place, only dubiously holding Clint onto the seat. If Wade hit the brakes, he'd probably roll onto the floor anyway. At least the impact would probably kill him. 

His Avengence was going to be so crappy. He hoped they'd just call the whole thing off before word of how he'd met his demise got around to cool people like Hill and Logan.

And then the car lurched into motion, hopping and jerking and Clint puked all over the seat and the floor and himself. 

"That's very unsupportive," Wade said, "Just because I can't drive a stick shift."

Clint suspected he could drive a stick just fine, but they lurched and revved and stalled their way around the block twice anyway before Wade 'got the hang of it' and started driving like a maniac. 

Clint said, "Mmugh," and wasn't sure what he was trying to get at, but then Wade took a corner too fast and then drove on a curb or two and the jarring and bumping made his vision swim in and out until it eventually just hazed and went dark.

\-----

The only thing he remembered about the rest of the ride, when he woke up, was more puking and being cold and at one point Wade stopping the car to sing at him. He couldn't really call it _to_ him, because he was pretty sure that his mental presence wasn't required. Maybe his presence at all, really. 

But he was warm now. Sluggish and feeling heavy, and he couldn't really move his arms, but he was alive and he was warm. For all of five seconds, he thought he had been found and recovered.

And then Wade's voice cut in, saying, "Oh, oh you cheater. I don't think so," to someone who probably didn't exist, and Clint very carefully didn't open his eyes. 

And then he realized exactly _why_ he couldn't move his arms and sleep got a little harder to fake.

"Bet you're wondering why I own a straight jacket?" Wade asked, even though Clint really wasn't. He was actually pretty fucking unsurprised. 

"Why the hell did you grab me from a fight that had nothing to do with you?" he asked, and got maybe every third word out. Even through the mask, Wade looked exasperated at his garble.

"Oh, hold on to your horses," he said, and disappeared to return with a glass and a bendy straw. Surprisingly thoughtful, since Clint didn't think he could sit up or even lift his head. "Don't worry," he said, "it's drugged."

Clint should have balked, but all he thought was, _oh good_ , because his side was killing him. 

\-----

He wasn't sure what Wade had drugged him with, because it didn't knock him out so much as make him feel weird and out of his body, floaty and kind of stupid as he watched colorful auras pulse dizzyingly around the edges of things. "This what it's like t'be you?" he said, and actually managed to sound intelligible. 

Wade laughed. 

"Think I liked it better when I was dying," Clint mumbled. He could feel the gunshot wound, but it didn't hurt so much as throb painlessly in time to the pulsing. Everything was moving too much. He felt carsick. 

"You weren't _dying_ ," Wade scoffed, then said, "Oh well. Maybe for a bit."

"That when you were singing?" Clint slurred. His body felt heavy, and the straitjacket was uncomfortable, too hot and rough against his skin. Wade patted him. 

"Listen," he said, "We're going to be partners in crime."

"Oh god," Clint said. Two hundred senior SHIELD agents and six Avengers, and he was always the one the lunatics wanted to team up with. Not even Natasha and she'd been a way better criminal than he'd ever dreamt of even _trying_ to be. "Why?" 

"Because," Wade said, which, Clint supposed, was a good enough reason when you were the one calling the shots.

Clint tried to glare at him anyway and hazy pink and green jumped and throbbed around the dark eyepatches of his mask. The room felt like it was tilting, one way and then the other. He had the suspicion that if it had been caused by Wade messing with him and not the drugs, he would still never know. "But," he groaned, and realized hazily that he was really, really high, "I wanted to be a hero."

Wade patted him as he slipped under again. "But that's so boring," he said.

\-----

Fury said, "No. Go back. _Why_ did you shoot Barton?"

"It wasn't because I _meant_ to," Natasha snipped back, without any of the deference she usually showed the director. Tony figured this was what Natasha looked like when she was freaking out. It was like a crabby Bruce. 

"And what do you mean he's _gone_?"

"Gone!" Tony repeated, "Do we have to explain 'gone' to you? Disappeared, lost, vanished, _weggegangen_."

"Gone," Steve translated. Just to be helpful, probably.

"He was too badly injured to get far on his own," Bruce put in, "Someone must have taken him." 

"Why the hell are people always taking _Barton_?" Tony demanded, "Why the hell is that guy so popular?" 

"And when," Fury asked tiredly, "did you notice that Barton was gone?"

"After he was shot," Tony snapped at him, "He was shot, and then he was gone. Are you even listening to any of this?"

\-----

"So," Clint wanted to know, when he was awake and miserable again, "What's a guy got to do to be allowed to take a piss around here?"

"Bathroom's down the hall," Wade offered, nodding vaguely, engrossed in a game of solitaire. Clint tried to glare, but Wade didn't seem to notice, doing his own thing like they were amicable roommates.

"Could you maybe get this thing off me?" Clint tried to make it sound friendly instead of murderous, "You know I'm not going anywhere." He really wasn't. He wasn't sure he was going to make it to his feet, let alone the bathroom. 

"Nope," Wade said, but got to his feet to help Clint sit up. He swayed, then tilted. His whole body was floppy and loose. 

"I have no balance," he observed, leaning against Wade, who snickered in a very Tony way. If he said 'Captain Obvious' Clint was just going to give up and start liking him, straitjacket and kidnapping be damned. He was too miserable to be angry on top of it all anyway. 

"I really hurt," he noted, after a bit, because his side was aching again. "Bullet still in there?"

"Through and through!" Wade said, like it was an accomplishment--like it was _his_ accomplishment--and carefully touched the dressing on Clint's back to show him. Clint didn't try to look. 

If he could get to the bathroom and if Wade would get him another drink, this would be, so far, the most pleasant, friendliest kidnapping he'd had to date.

\-----

By the third day he realized that the haloing wasn't from Wade giving him LSD but because he was having a weird reaction to an antibiotic or painkiller. No one who'd captured him had ever given him antibiotics before. Speed and bizarre serums and on one occasion crack, but not antibiotics. Definitely not painkiller.

He felt oddly touched. 

Even more so when Wade got him different meds once he'd realized what all the puking and tipping over was about. Clint thought, dangerously, that he was an okay guy. Tony talked to himself. Clint, sometimes, talked to himself. It wasn't like it was a strike against the guy's humanity to be a little lonely.

"I think I'm developing Stockholm syndrome," he said out loud, just to hear his own voice and because it was boring lying in bed when he couldn't read or watch TV, or even scratch himself. 

"Why do all my friends _say_ that?" Wade asked.

\-----

"I'm quitting the Avengers," Clint said. He sounded more irritated than under duress. Like he was humoring someone instead of being coerced. Or maybe like he was just fed up with their friendly fire.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked, leaning too close to the phone and talking too loud either because he didn't trust speaker-phone, or didn't trust Clint to be listening. Tony was long over rolling his eyes at it, but he still noticed.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure," Clint said, "I'm good. But. _Nat_ shot me, right? It was Nat? I just want to know for future argument purposes, because _she_ still brings up that time I accidentally exploded an arrow in her kind-of proximity."

"Kind-of proximity?" Natasha said, "Come home and I'll show you my shrapnel scars again."

"You can show _me_ ," Tony offered. Clint huffed.

Steve said, "Clint, what's going on?" There was mumbling on the line, muffled, and then the sound of Clint arguing, then sighing. 

"Gotta go, guys. It's been fun." More mumbling, then, "I mean, it's been a drag and Stark is an ass and don't try to find me," and, a little distantly, like Clint was facing away from the phone, "Okay? Are you happy n--" and then the line cut off. 

"Well," Tony said, after a few moments of silence, "at least it doesn't sound like he's dead."

"Or being tortured," Bruce added. 

"Future argument purposes?" Natasha said, "He's not quitting anything. What the hell is going on?"

\-----

"Time to go," Wade said, burning Clint's phone in a coffee can. It made the room reek of plastic fumes, and Clint was pretty sure Tony would be able to trace the thing anyway.

"What?" Clint asked, "You don't live here?"

"Live here?" Wade asked, incredulously, "Have you _seen_ this place? It's a _dump_. I thought you were used to the finer things in life now?" Clint was, but the room was the sort of place he associated with mercenary hideouts. The sort of places he'd lived in when _he_ had been a mercenary--bare and simple and with makeshift furniture. The kind of place where the rent--when there was rent--was cheap and payable in cash and the transaction hard or impossible to trace.

It was possible though, that Wade was just a better mercenary than he'd been--insanity aside--and could safely score better housing.

"Where're we going?" Clint asked, casually. He hoped it was someplace with hot showers, at least. He was pretty sure he _reeked_ , and he couldn't quite believe the bullet wound wasn't infected yet, despite the antibiotics and Wade's surprisingly organized dressing changes.

"Tut-tut-tut. Nice try. I'll tell you when your whole phone is a puddle, but there's still little lumpy bits in here," Wade said, and used a pencil to stir around in the coffee can. He was going to kill them both with the damn fumes. "I burnt your clothes, too." he said, "but outside." 

"Why couldn't you burn the phone outside?" Clint wanted to know, even though it wasn't like Wade needed reasons for anything. 

"But I got you new ones, don't worry," he went on, as if Clint had never said anything, "I'll be new Tony, and clothe you and house you and drug you and stuff." 

Clint started to say that Tony had never drugged him, but then remembered a couple of instances when he'd felt distinctly odd after hanging around in the lab with him and Bruce and decided not to mention it after all. "I don't know if antibiotics count as drugging," he said instead, and Wade looked up from his little Bunsen burner and coffee can and tilted his head a little.

"What? Oh. Oh, not _that_ ," he said, and rummaged in his belt pouch until he came up with a little baggy. He tossed it at Clint, but it wasn't like he could catch it with the straitjacket on. It his chest, then sort of slid into the crook of one elbow. "That. Take two."

Clint gave him a look. 

"Oh, you're so stubborn," Wade said, and got up and fished two pills out of the little ziploc, shoving them into Clint's mouth with fingers that stank like smoke and melted phone. 

"Ugh," Clint protested around them.

"Swallow," Wade said, "So we can get out of here before your phone gives us both cancer. Well. More cancer. Or gives _you_ cancer and _me_ more cancer. Wait." He thought about it for a bit, clamping Clint's jaw closed, and tilting his head up until he eventually had to swallow or drown in his own spit. Half-dissolved, the pills tasted foul. 

"You cancer, and me more cancer," Wade said, "Yeah, I think that's right."

\-----

The car smelled _disgusting_. Like blood and vomit that had sat out in the sun for the better part of a week. It made Clint want to be sick and Wade gave him a disapproving look.

" _You_ made this mess. And you wonder why we don't go out more. Well, this is why. Now I have to steal another whole car," he crabbed, and Clint leaned against the vile smelling Honda and was grateful that he wasn't going to have to get in it. 

"Every damn time," Wade was grumbling, surveying the choices, "This is why we can't have nice things, Clint." 

Clint slid down the side of the car and put his head on his knees. They were in a lot, cars all around that looked to be in about the same shape as the one Wade had originally stolen, before Clint had nearly died in it. Older, and mid-level and utterly unremarkable. Wade said, "How do you feel about red? It's very sporty."

Clint didn't give a shit. He tried to say so, but whatever Wade had given him was making him slur unsteadily. He wanted to go back to sleep. And he might have done so, for a bit, because the next thing he knew he was in the backseat--the clean backseat--of a moving car, dressed in proper clothes. 

And he could move his arms. 

He tried to concentrate on that rather than the fact that Wade had apparently undressed and then re-dressed him in a parking lot. He bet _that_ scene had just reeked of foul play, but also that any witnesses had probably just hurried along and pretended not to see. 

"Hey. I have boots," he said, and hadn't meant it to be out loud. Having real clothes shouldn't have been that exciting, but having real footwear meant a better chance of escape when he had access to higher brain function again. 

"How'm I gonna be in crime," Clint asked, still a little drunkenly, when they pulled into a rest stop like they were on an honest-to-god road trip, so Wade could dose him again, "if I'm doped up the whole time?" Or restrained, but he didn't want to remind Wade of the existence of the straitjacket. There was the chance that it had been left behind at the squat, but also that it had been brought along. Or that Wade could find another.

"I think you'll be very good in crime," Wade told him, with warm reassurance. Like he was saying _I'm sure you can learn to be good at math, dear_ , and also like he hadn't heard the second part of Clint's question. 

Clint sighed and rolled his head to look out the window. It was raining. Heavy, fat droplets that gathered on his window and then slithered down to pool at the small ledge where window met door. He played with the window controls, watching the water gather as the glass lowered, then become a line as it raised again with all the fascination of being utterly out of his head.

" _Honestly_ ," Wade tutted, and got out to hustle him into the bathroom. Clint was glad the rest stop was empty because the straitjacket might be gone, but Wade had handcuffs on him, and how weird that might look to other people seemed more important, at the moment, than that they might recognize him or even Wade's red mask, and call the sighting in.

\-----

"Rest stop. Edge of Jersey," Tony called, when the tracer pinged, "Payphone." 

"Thank god," Steve said, because after they'd traced Clint's last call from his cellphone they had found a nearly bare room in a filthy, run down old office building, with the remains of Clint's phone a shapeless, burnt mass in a can, and half-charred bloodied bandages and sheets, as well as the remains of Clint's battle gear, in what had been a bonfire on the roof. 

They'd found the car, too, destroyed and smelling like something had been sick and then died in it. From the amount of blood on the seat alone, Bruce predicted Clint wouldn't be in any shape to escape on his own, even with proper care. 

"Clint?" Natasha asked, when no voice came over the line. "What's going on? You want back on the team?"

There was a sound and then Clint said, "Hmmoog."

"Clint?"

"Talk. Talk," a voice whispered, "You think I'm made of dimes?"

Clint obediently made a series of slurred mumbling noises, then said, distinctly, "Tired," followed by a thump.

"Oh, crap," The voice said.

\-----

Wade, somehow, acquired an RV, which was ridiculous, but also had a bed in it, so Clint didn't complain or comment. It was way more comfortable than being drugged in the backseat or, for a few hours when Wade thought he'd miscalculated and the Avengers were onto him, in the trunk. 

Wade kept having him make calls, conversations he only half-remembered, and he wasn't sure anymore if the idea was to drag him to the dark side or to screw with the Avengers. Maybe both. 

"I can't tell if you're trying to fuck with Tony or with Cap or if this just some cat and mouse game before you shoot me in the head," Clint told him, when they were parked in the middle of a field in what he thought might be Virginia. 

"Why would I shoot you in the head?" Wade asked, "You were so much trouble to fix." 

He wasn't fixed. He was still woozy from the bloodloss when he wasn't woozy from the drugs. His side hurt and he could barely sit up on his own. Shuffled around the reststops where they used the bathrooms and ate crap from vending machines like he might down hospital hallways. 

The cuffs were gone, but now that Wade was leaving him alone for several hours at a time, in a non-moving vehicle, the straitjacket was back and his boots disappeared. 

He should be bothered that he was getting used to it, but he was also relatively comfortable and Wade hadn't actually hurt him if he didn't count damage to pride and dignity and maybe blood sugar as pain.

"We're going to shoot somebody," Wade told him, when he came back from who knew where, coming and going through the tall weeds around the grassy patch they were parked in for no reason that Clint could figure other than that maybe he'd really enjoyed Field of Dreams. 

"Or _you're_ going to shoot somebody _for_ me, and then ka- _ching_!"

Clint was pretty sure Wade didn't need his help to assassinate anyone. Wade was plenty good at assassination already. 

"Ka-ching, ka-ching," Wade repeated, quieter, even though he was no longer miming playing slots. Or maybe he still was, in his head. Clint had had enough time in his own head by now to not even really be bothered. 

Wade looked at him and patted his cheek and said, "I got you donuts," and Clint groaned. All the shit he was being fed was making him genuinely miss Bruce and his tofu and chickpea curry and spinach somethings. He had dreams about them. About Bruce clattering around the kitchen and him saying _that's not actual cooking, Bruce_ like an asshole.

He ate the fucking donuts. Let Wade shove the pills into his mouth in what was now a familiar ritual and swallowed without the whole veterinarian-like tilt-your-head-and-hold-your-jaw thing. 

"Oh, don't be all sad," Wade told him, when he sighed as the drugs hit, "We can play call the Avengers. This time you can tell them anything you want."

\-----

"G'na kill s'mone," Clint said, his voice crackling over the most shit connection Tony had heard in a while, but that probably made Steve feel all at home and nostalgic for war era radio.

"Hey! That was our little secret!" the voice that was often muttering in the background said, too broken up to identify. 

"Said I could say an'thing," Clint protested. Even on the bad connection he sounded barely coherent. 

"Are you drunk? Don't drink and shoot, Barton. That is bad policy,"

"M'not drunk." Clint sounded cranky about it, like he was insulted that Tony thought he'd be stupid enough to get wasted while also being the victim of a kidnapping, and it made Tony smile and Natasha nod in something that looked like approval, because if Clint was being snippy he was also probably mostly okay.

"Wade's druggin' m--" he said, and the connection died with an emphatic click.

"Wade? _Wade_? Holy fuck, Clint, are you with _Deadpool_? Clint? Fuck fuck."

\-----

"What was _that_?" Wade demanded, as they drove down the highway of god-knew-where, and, when Clint huffed and slouched, finally up to sitting in the passenger seat, at least for a few hours at a time, "No. No. _You_ don't get to sulk. Bad assassin."

"You did say I could tell them anything."

"But not my secret identity. That's _sacred_. What if you did that to _Spiderman_? I'm hurt. I'm betrayed. I'm--"

Clint stopped listening and looked out the window. If he didn't count the drugging and the dramatics, Wade wasn't that bad of a captor. Clint might be handcuffed to his seat, but anyone else would have done a lot more to him for pulling the shit he did than mope and scold and refuse to share gummy bears.

"Who are we shooting?" Clint asked, to change the subject. There was a small bag of french fries in the cup holder. Grease and salt and Clint remembered loving those flavors, but living off them made him feel sick and disgusting and like he was legitimately on the run.

"Nu-uh," Wade said, "You don't get to know things anymore. From now on, your only job is to look pretty and man the radio. Now hush and find some country."

Clint tried. There was nothing but weather reports and talk radio. "Where _are_ we?" he asked, fiddling with the knob, dialing it back and forth and coming up with static most of the time. 

"Bad assassins don't get to know things," Wade said again, like he was scolding a child, or maybe a dog. It sounded kind of fond. Clint tried not to be glad about it, and tried to remind himself that the man was nuts, but he was also the only other person he'd talked to--if he didn't count their garbled drunk-dialing of the Avengers--in at least a week and half, by now. 

"How long since you abducted me?" Clint wanted to know.

"Nope," Wade said.

"What day is it?" Clint asked.

"Nuh-uh," Wade said, then looked at the radio Clint was still trying to find decent music on and pulled the RV over long enough to shoot it. 

"Really?" Clint said, because that wasn't the sort of over-reaction he'd been expecting. 

"I'll steal you a cd player. We'll have tunes," Wade assured him, and patted his arm companionably, "But bad assassins aren't allowed to know things."

\-----

"Is it a Spiderman thing?" Clint asked, two nights later when they were eating canned pasta in the doorway of the RV, at an empty truck weigh-in station. Beyond the guardrail indicating the edge of the graveled lot, fireflies blinked on and off. Cap would have enjoyed this road trip. 

"Is what a Spiderman thing?" Wade asked, and Clint indicated his mask with his chopsticks--it was inane, eating cold canned ravioli with chopsticks when they had forks, but it was pointless to argue even if the soft pasta kept falling apart on him. 

Wade's chin was scarred. Ugly, knotted tissue that disappeared under his half-rolled-up mask. It looked like the remains of a burn injury, maybe. "Spidey came with us for burritos once," Clint said, frowning into his can as another ravioli square fell into pieces and slid out of his chopsticks, "Didn't take his mask off to eat, either. Seriously, _why_ can't I have a fork?"

It might have been pointless to argue, but that didn't mean Clint didn't.

"Bad assassins don't get to--"

"Yeah, yeah. That's just an excuse now," Clint said, and ate in silence for a while. Then, "You _know_ that I know who you are, right? I've been calling you 'Wade' this whole time."

Wade, magically, shut up. For a whole fifteen minutes, which was about how long it took for Clint to start feeling sick from the pasta.

And then he pulled his mask off. 

"Oh," Clint said, looking at him, "I guess that's a reason."

\-----

"I know we're still heading south," Clint said, two days and three RVs later, "sort of." There was a lot of detouring and looping around involved, but he'd been paying attention and they were definitely on a vague Southward track. "We're not going to DC are we? I don't want to shoot a bigwig." He _really_ didn't want to. He'd been in assassination-related trouble before, and anything Wade was involved in was likely to cause more trouble than the underworld small timers he'd fallen in with before SHIELD.

"Bad--"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Clint said, but kept going anyway, "Is this what I'm for? You want me to take out some big shot they'd actually give a shit about? You need a fall guy?"

"That _would_ make things easier," Wade said, like the idea had never occurred to him. "Maybe we should get ourselves one of those, someday." He had a ridiculous fishing hat on, complete with lures. "Like it? It came with the car."

So did a half dozen rods, a net, and a fridge with real food in it. Clint hoped Wade hadn't stranded anyone out in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe he hoped he _had_ , because that might bring the cops down on them.

"Don't worry," Wade said, like he knew what Clint was thinking, "I changed the plates."

\-----

"We had a campfire. We cooked a fish. Or I cooked a fish. It was in our--the fridge." First non-junk food in _forever_. He hadn't realized how starved for actual nutrition he was until he'd smelled the thing cooking. And then he'd followed it with milk and fruit from the RV fridge and almost wolfed down a bag of greens raw and unwashed. 

Bruce would be proud.

Tony, on the other hand, said, "I hope you're enjoying your camping trip, Barton," in mock-sweet tones, "Natasha is worried about you. You don't write, you don't call and then, out of nowhere--"

"You sound clearer," Cap cut in, hinting, and Clint decided to not tell him about the drugs. At least not any more than he thought he already had. 

"Yeah," he said, "It's a better connection."

\-----

The trace said they were back in New Jersey. Tony was pretty sure that was bullshit.

\-----

"Why are we leaving a trail for them?" Clint asked, hanging up when Wade gestured at him to cut the call. "It's not even a clue trail. It's just--Is this some kind of proof of life thing?"

"Oh, that's good," Wade said, "Clint, it's a proof of life thing."

Clint sighed. His side still hurt, but he could walk and sit and get up just fine now, even though by the time they pulled over for the night he was ready to drop. He was sure that if Wade was going to kill him, there'd have been some sign of it by now. 

Instead it seemed like Wade just intended to haul him around, stealing cars and vans and retirees' motor homes and talking shit. 

"If I'm supposed to shoot someone," he tried, "shouldn't I have a gun or a bow or something to keep in practice with?" 

Wade looked at him. "Oh," he said, "Sure."

\-----

Getting back into shooting shape was its own misery, even with the small arsenal's worth of gun and bow options Wade brought back for him. From _where_ , exactly, was a mystery, because they were parked--and had been for two days--on the shoulder of a graveled mountain road that looked like it might be someone's private property. There was literally nothing around that looked like human habitation, and there hadn't been for miles.

The view, though, was pretty great. Clint almost felt bad for enjoying it as he lined up empty soup and pasta cans on a fence--just like in the dated boy's adventure magazines that the orphanage used to have, filled with cowboys and frontiersmen.

Except for the fact that he had a silencer, Clint thought, taking out the first can. Without it, his shots would have rung out and echoed against the hills. With it, there was mostly just the clatter of the cans, an innocent enough sound.

It was, for the moment, a little bit like an actual vacation. Up here, away from the city, the air was misty and cool with fog and if shooting was hurting his side more than a bit, at least he wasn't cuffed or drugged or bound up in Wade's mental ward memorabilia. 

If he had any idea where he was, how far from civilization he was, or even what day it was--to determine how long they'd been driving, and thereby, again, how far from civilization he was--Clint might have made a run for it, half-healed injury be damned. 

As it was, he was probably better off sticking with Wade a bit further. He wasn't exactly equipped to live off the land, shooting skills aside. 

"I need a coonskin cap," he told Wade, as a joke, when he made his way back to the RV for more ammunition. 

"Nope," Wade said, "You made fun of my fishing hat."

\-----

"I'm not really in top form," Clint said, as they started down the mountain in a station wagon Wade had taken from a look-out point and trail, leaving in its place the RV full of fishing rods and extraneous guns. Clint had chosen his favorites. The rest were dead weight. In another lifetime, Clint would have regretted every penny they were worth. Now he just hoped it wouldn't set anyone on their tail.

Wade didn't seem worried, but then Wade was also a nutbag. 

"Nutbag?" Wade moped, when Clint said so, after voicing his concern about the guns, "And I got you music and everything."

He had. Sort of. The station wagon had a cd player and no radio--which meant Wade didn't have to execute it like last time--but the glove compartment was full of opera. And violin concertos, but Wade wouldn't let him put those on, so they had to listen to Italian warbling all the way back to habitated land. 

"Stop singing along," Clint pleaded, after about an hour, "Do you even _speak_ Italian?" 

"I _sing_ Italian," Wade insisted, arms waving as he acted out whatever he thought the opera was about, "Keep your eyes on the road."

"Are you going to wear that hat this entire job?" Clint asked.

"Oh, _now_ you want it," Wade said, with a hand on his chest, the other hand out the window, as the cd hit a series of high notes, "I _tried_ to give it to you. You _might_ remember if everything I said didn't go in one ear and out the other."

Clint grit his teeth. 

\-----

They spent the night in an abandoned mill, water wheel and everything. Or really, Clint did, because Wade dropped him off with a sleeping bag and two of the guns and pissed off to where ever Wade felt like pissing off to. 

"This is the part where you've arranged for someone to come and kill me, isn't it?" Clint asked, rummaging through the back of the car for stuff he might want. 

"Then why would I give you the guns?" 

"To throw me off guard," Clint snapped, jamming his things into a small duffel that he'd found in one of the sequential RVs.

"Don't be paranoid," Wade said, waving out the driver side window, like he was leaving him at summer camp, "it makes you sound crazy." 

\-----

"Screwy vacation, day I-don't-know-what," Clint said to himself, lying in the dark. Where ever they were, it was still seriously abandoned country. There wasn't a light anywhere that he could see. The mountains around him had become shadowy shapes, then humps of darkness and now just blended into the inky darkness of the sky.

The stars, though, were pretty good. Like they'd been one time when he'd been lost in Siberia or somewhere with Natasha. Except it wasn't that cold here. Damp from rain and mist, and chilly now that it was dark, but not really cold. Nat would like it. 

Wade would probably get on with her, too.

"Holy fuck, Barton" Clint said to himself, "escape plan. Not hook up your pal with a lunatic plan. For god's sake, you're _unsupervised_ , you _should_ be able to figure a way out of here." And then he realized he was talking to himself and stopped. It was pretty innocent to-self talk, but it was a lot less comfortable to catch himself doing it after hanging with Wade for so long.

And Wade might have left him on his own, but he still had no idea where he was, and he still had the not-in-hiking-shape problem and the easily-exhausted problem and the lack-of-provisions problem. 

By the time it was noon the next day, he was hungry and considering whether he should open the can of beans Wade had left him or try to save it, in case the man didn't come back. Instead, he did some recon, checking out the area. 

It was beautiful. Scenery like that always made him think of Steve and his watercolors. If he knew where he was, he'd bring the team back some day for a _real_ camping trip. Bruce had the same stupid hat as Wade, and the stream that had once powered the mill probably had fish. 

He was poking around an old bridge, upstream a ways when he heard the sound of an engine and perked up, then swore at himself for doing it. 

Wade was breaking him in a very wily way, and Clint didn't know if he was doing it on purpose, or if he was even aware of it at all, but when the station wagon puttered up to the bridge--having in the mean time acquired a smiley-face antenna guard even though the antenna wasn't hooked up to anything, and a flag of the Republic of Peru--Clint was actually happy to see the fucking madman. 

He tried to tamp the feeling down, but then decided that denial was more dangerous, or at least made dangerous things even _more_ dangerous, so he just filed it away and went over with one gun in his hand and the other tucked into the back of his jeans. 

"Hel-looooo," Wade called, honking like he had New York road rage. "Are you running? Don't run. Not without saying good bye. Why would you _do_ that?"

"You left me one can of beans," Clint accused, "where would I run _to_?" Getting to the bridge was about the limit of his stamina at the moment, anyway. Picking his way over the broken road and then the uneven, rotting boards had his side aching and burning. The gun was heavy in his hand.

"If you're running, you should have brought your stuff," Wade said, going from _don't_ to _how-to_ advice as if Clint had never spoken. Or maybe like Clint _had_ spoken, but had said something entirely different than what he actually had. "I got your things from the mill," Wade said, "Hop in. I got new music."

\-----

Wade's new music was some kind of chanting that Clint couldn't discern the cultural origins of, but Wade was as happy to chant along to as he'd been happy to sing along with the opera. 

Clint toyed meaningfully with the concerto cds--as least they were peaceful, and had no vocals to accompany--but Wade ignored him until small towns started to appear. Then he snatched the cd out of his hand and pulled over. "Get out. Get in back," he said. Clint glared.

"Because I wouldn't sing along? I don't _know_ Italian, or whatever the hell this," he paused to wave at the cd player, "stuff is."

"Nooo~" Wade chirped, "Because bad assassins--"

"Oh, for god's sake," Clint snapped, and got out. He didn't get back in the car, just started hauling off down the side of the road. He'd _seen_ towns. Even if he couldn't get very far at a stretch, he'd get to one of them _eventually_. Or someone would drive by. They weren't in the middle of fucking nowhere anymore. 

Wade put the car in reverse, keeping pace with his--secretly--painful stalk. "Are you mad? Don't be _mad_. We can talk about this. I'll compromise, you'll compromise, we'll get along again. You'll shoot a guy. It'll be swell."

"You don't need me to shoot a guy," Clint snapped, "You've been shooting guys just fine on your own." _Give me back to the Avengers_ , he didn't say, because it made him sound helpless and like he couldn't get anywhere on his own.

"But not with your style," Wade wheedled, "You kill so pretty. Come on. Get in."

"Fine. First compromise: No more drugs."

"Yeah. You'll have to compromise on that," Wade said, nodding agreeably. Clint gave him a look and went back to walking. 

He made it maybe a quarter mile, sweat prickling his neck and back, his side screaming, and Wade keeping pace in the car, rolling slowly backwards next to him. "Well?" he asked, when Clint stopped to press a hand to his bandaged side and swallow down a wave of nausea.

"Fuck off," Clint said, and heard him sigh. 

Then there was a click and there was a gun in his face. 

If it was anyone else, Clint would have kept walking, because it made no sense to shoot him in the head after all the trouble of kidnapping him and dragging him all over the countryside. But it was Wade, and half of what Wade did made no sense to anyone, and maybe not even to Wade himself. There was really no way to guess if he would go through with it or not. 

Clint guessed yes. He got in the car. 

"Nuh-uh," Wade scolded, still keeping the gun on him. "In the back." 

"Oh, fuck," Clint spat, and got out again to get in the back seat. When he was in Wade handed him two of the familiar pills and stuck the gun back in his face. 

"I want to see them in your mouth, and then I want to see you've swallowed them," he said. 

"What's the big deal? You can just stop fucking with the Avengers. I can't pass information on if we don't call, right?"

"Honestly, you ruin all our trips like this. Argue argue argue, the whole time," Wade said, and fired. Not _at_ Clint, and it didn't even damage the car, because the rear door window was open. Conveniently. _Too_ conveniently.

"Alright. _Fine_ ," Clint snarled and put the pills in his mouth, showing Wade before swallowing and saying, "Ah!" He stuck his tongue out for good measure.

"Drink," Wade said, tossing him a bottle of water. Clint did. 

"How about we get some real food?" he asked, when they were moving again, and lay down across the back seat to watch trees and sky go by as he waited for the drugs to kick in. "I don't have a healing factor. This living on cheetos thing is fucking killing me."

\-----

It was actually kind of pleasant, Clint didn't want to think but did anyway, that there was nothing to do but sleep and watch the treetops turn into roofs and electric cables and back into trees. He'd even managed to get Wade to switch out the music and with the drugs, he didn't feel the pain in his side at all. 

"Mmh," Clint complained, a cranky grunt, when Wade tried to sing along with the violins, just making up lyrics, "Shuddit."

"Don't like my hat, don't like my singing," Wade grumbled, "It's like we have nothing in common anymore."

Clint felt a wash of rage. Not at the kidnapping or the hostage holding or the continued drugging but at the talking over the first music on this trip that wasn't chanting or howling or yodeling. Until Wade had opened his damn mouth again, it had been a bit like riding with Phil, when he was tending classical instead of Elvis. 

Clint was possibly getting a little over-invested in string instruments, but when Wade fell to humming and then back to driving in silence, he felt a wash of triumph. 

"Cozy back there?" Wade chirped, just as he was letting himself fall back into a drowse, and Clint dropped his hand off the seat to touch the gun he'd put on the floor. If it was anyone but Wade, he thought, anyone at all. 

\-----

"Clint?" Steve asked, leaning over the table to talk directly into the speaker, propped on his elbows. It was an oddly child-like pose for Cap, but he sounded worried enough that Tony didn't mention it. 

"Where are you? What are you doing? Do I hear violins?" Tony asked Clint. 

"Not s're," Clint slurred, and fucking _Deadpool_ cut in to say, " _I_ wanted Tuvan throat singing, but noo~."

"What are you doing with Hawkeye?" Steve demanded, "Bring him back."

"Bring? Do you know what gas costs these days? It's not like I can just steal a car that runs on Stark batteries."

"We'll come get him," Tony growled, "Where are you?"

"See?" Deadpool said, "If you were allowed to know things, you'd be spilling the beans right now. Letting cats out of bags. Singing as per canaries."

"S'town," Clint offered, sounding stubborn if dopey, and Deadpool gasped like he was shocked.

"Bad assassin. Bad. Give me the phone."

\-----

Wade got him real food, and it was probably a sign of some kind of vitamin deficiency that Clint very nearly decided that he was the best guy ever as he sat on the car's hood and wolfed down what would some weeks ago have been a pretty ordinary tuna salad sandwich. "I am not this excited about orange juice," Clint said, not that convincingly, as he unscrewed the old style glass bottle. It wasn't even from concentrate, but fresh. It was like Wade had found a fucking farmer's market or something. 

"Aw, shucks," Wade said, shoving chocolate chip cookies into his mouth, "it was nothing."

Clint sipped, torn between chugging it and making it last. If only Bruce you-can't-live-on-milkshakes Banner could see him now, he thought, but hanging with Wade wasn't like hanging with the Avengers where food often had accidental nutritional value, even if one wasn't particularly trying for it. Where Bruce or Steve or Natasha cooked something involving actual biological material at least a couple times during the week. Wade seemed to pick what they ate according to how unpronounceable the ingredients list was, or how many times it had been fried.

It was like he was trying really hard to die of coronary disease, which was just stupid when a bullet to the head barely made him twitch.

Clint wasn't sure if the real food was a bribe or if Wade considered it a part of the _I'll compromise, you'll compromise_ deal--or if that had even been a deal and not more bullshit--but he couldn't go back to whole weeks of canned spagetti-os and gas station nachos, so when Wade said, "Pills. Car," his only protest was to ball up his trash and toss it at Wade's head.

\-----

He woke up on a roof, with no idea where they were other than that it seemed like a shithole of a town, old brick buildings and weatherboard, at least from the bit of it that he could see. He was also handcuffed to a pipe. 

"What's going on?" he demanded, as soon as he had control of his tongue. It came out raspy and thick, so when Wade handed him a bottle of water, he drank.

"What do you mean?" Wade asked, "This is what we do," and nodded at a rifle, already set up. There was a photo stuck to it like some kind of memento. Clint tugged it loose.

"This the target? I can't say I've had slimmer files."

"Oh, please," Wade said, and Clint could tell he was rolling his eyes, "You've shot guys on a name. On a 'shoot now, Hawkeye'." Clint shrugged. It was true. 

"Why can't you take him out?"

"Because that's _your_ job. I'm going to be in there," Wade said, and mimed walking with his fingers, "doing some up close, personal, and probably shot-several-times-in-the-process work. If that guy makes it out, you pick him off. If he doesn't--hey, it's a nice day to be outside. What've you got to lose?"

Clint hoped he didn't make it out, but he did. And he didn't particularly want to be casting his lot in with Wade, or be involved in whatever Wade was involved in, but he took the shot anyway. 

Mostly, he told himself, because Wade had the keys to the handcuffs and he didn't want him to have to set off on a chase after the guy and leave Clint stuck where he was in the meantime. Or decide he was useless and leave him there more permanently, because Wade very well might.

\-----

"So what was that about?" Clint asked, when Wade had regenerated whatever injuries he's acquired and come back.

"Pack up," Wade said, "Can you make it down the ladder?" and gestured to a fire escape. Clint eyed it and wondered how Wade had gotten him up here in the first place. 

"If there's stairs," he started, suspiciously, and Wade snorted in irritation and tossed his hands into the air.

"You aren't any fun, you know that, Hawkeye? Everything _I_ want to do--"

"The gun's heavy," Clint explained--complained, maybe--and wondered why the fuck he was apologizing.

\-----

Lying on the roof half the day and then toting equipment down four flights of steep, rotting steps hadn't done his side any favors, so when they got back to the car Clint heaved his gun case onto the station wagon's tailgate and shoved it further in, then crawled onboard after it and eased himself onto his non-injured side. 

"You don't have to knock me out," he said, when the back of the car had slammed shut and the driver's side door had opened, "I'm already out."

"Okey-dokey," Wade called cheerfully, and started the car. Then _dum-dum-dum_ -ed the beginning to Ode to Joy and turned on the--completely unrelated--violins. But then he shut up and drove and Clint didn't ask him who the guy was, or why they'd had to take him out, or why the job had been in such a tiny, half-abandoned town or whether his assistance had actually even been necessary. 

"Avenger call?" he asked after a while, because it was the first time in a long time that he'd killed someone and not known why, or even if they deserved it. For some reason, it made him want to talk to Steve, or just hear Steve say something stubbornly ethical.

" _Avenger_ call?" Wade said, incredulous and hurt sounding, "What's wrong with _me_? Don't you want to talk to _me_? It's always 'shut it, Wade', 'I hate your donuts, Wade', 'that hat is stupid, Wade'."

Clint sighed. "Okay," he said, and pulled the folded up sleeping bag over his head so he could use it to shut Wade's voice out, "Okay. Forget it."

\-----

"Alright, mopeyface," Wade coo-ed, like he was talking to a cat or a small child or something, hanging over the back seat to lean over Clint, "look what I got you." 

Clint opened an eye, "Where the fuck are we?" he asked. 

"Oh, somewhere," Wade said, waving a hand dismissively. "Isn't that right, pal?" Then he switched to a high squeaky voice, and said, "Yeah, this place sucks. Who gives a shit?"

"It's a pez dispenser," Clint said, rolling onto his back to frown at Wade's stupid ventriloquist act.

" _He's_ a pez dispenser," Wade scolded, cupping his hand over the plastic clown head, "Honestly, Clint. Don't worry, guy. Hawkeye's just cranky, but he gets over it. You'll see. You two will be pals."

Clint was fairly sure that the thing wasn't filled with candy, which meant that Wade intended to keep on drugging him, and _that_ meant that he wasn't done with him yet. That he wasn't going to be released anytime soon.

He should probably care, but he just wanted to sleep. 

\-----

It was the longest that they hadn't heard from Clint and Steve pretended to be keeping it together, but Tony could tell that he was cracking a little. He checked the call alerts multiple times a day, despite them being called _alerts_ for a reason. 

"He's been fine so far," Bruce tried to reassure him, but it wasn't like any of them were unaware how unpredictable Deadpool was. Clint could easily be his best friend today and his next body tomorrow. The only reassuring part of that, really, was that Clint _hadn't_ been fine when they'd last seen him, which meant that Deadpool had actually taken care of him, not just failed to harm him. 

Which meant he had a use for Clint, and if he had a use for Clint, he wasn't going to kill him.

"It's not even that I can't trace that lunatic," Tony groused, "Half the time he's calling from rest stops, but he's in Jersey, in Connecticut, in fucking _Missouri_." He tossed his Starkpad to the counter, “They’re constantly moving. He just wants us to know that we're being outsmarted by a guy who talks to himself."

"We're being outsmarted," Natasha said, "But Clint's being held prisoner. When we get him back, I'm never letting him hear the end of it."

"Did you forget the part where you shot him?" Tony asked, "Already?"

\-----

The clown toy, Clint realized, was misdirection. He'd been keeping such a close eye on it that he hadn't even realized that Wade had tampered with his drink. He couldn't tell if the man was sneaky as shit, or if he just went about things so randomly that it was hard to keep up, let alone stay a step ahead.

When he woke up, rain was pattering against the windows again and the car was parked. Probably tidily, because when he wasn't driving like he was making up his own traffic laws, Wade drove like the world's pickiest grandmother, and back-seat drove like a safety obsessed control freak. Clint thought it was probably sometime during the argument about how long it was necessary to stay at a full stop at an utterly abandoned intersection that Wade had popped the drugs into his coffee. 

"I was behind the fucking wheel," Clint groaned to the empty car, and squirmed around to take stock of how securely the straitjacket was fastened. Wade had also crammed him into the sleeping bag, either so he wouldn't look so obviously held against his will to anyone who might peer in the window, or as a joke, or because he thought Clint would be more comfortable. It was possible. Wade could be a murderous lunatic, but he could also be a weirdly thoughtful murderous lunatic. 

For certain bizarre values of 'thoughtful'.

"You ass!" Clint yelled, when he came back, wearing Clint's jacket over his usual get-up and with the fishing hat perched on his head. 

"What? I cracked the windows," Wade said, and fiddled with the controls, "See?"

"I was driving!" Clint went on, trying to wriggle free off the sleeping bag, "Why would you drug someone when they're _driving_?"

"Because that's when you weren't looking," Wade said, like it should be obvious. "I had to stop you. You were a danger to the public."

"You wanted me to stop for five minutes at a stop sign! In the middle of _nowhere_!" 

"No reason to go speed demoning around just because you can," Wade scolded, checking his mirrors, and fussily adjusting the rear-view, "Now shush. I have to concentrate. I'm about to pull out into traffic."

Clint gave the bag a last kick and gave up. Squirming around had strained his side. It felt like it was on fire and he had to take some time to just lie still and pant through it. 

"Violins?" Wade offered, and Clint wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. 

Instead he said, "Whatever. I don't give a shit. No singing."

\-----

Halfway up another mountain road, they ditched the station wagon. Clint was quietly, unreasonably pissed. He had been starting to love that car. He didn't know why. He just knew he hated abandoning it. It looked fucking lonely, sitting off the side of the road next to a seasonal restaurant that looked like it had last opened maybe ten summers ago, its faded sign missing pieces and letters. Weeds and a small tree were breaking through the asphalt of its parking lot 

The smiley face antenna guard looked depressing as hell now that were going to just leave it there, where no one was likely to find the car, let alone get it back to its owners.

"Don't be strange," Wade told him, and Clint snorted. 

"How are we getting out of here?" he asked, because the restaurant was in the middle of nowhere. Again in the middle of nowhere, with no lot, motel, or tourist trap to steal another vehicle from. "She's the only car for miles."

"She?" Wade smirked, and started to say something else. Probably about to bring up the stupid clown dispenser again. 

"Shove it," Clint snapped. Then, "If we have to walk, I can't _carry_ anything. You realize, right?" Carrying the rifle down the stairs after the job--whatever the fuck it had been about--had about done him in for the day. And maybe the next. 

"Oh, don't _worry_ so much," Wade said, wandering off into the building. Clint followed. 

"How about we split up? I take the car, you do whatever you were planning on doing anyway."

Wade gestured at a booth. Clint sat. The fake leather was cracked and faded and torn and moldering foam poked through. Animals probably lived in it.

"No splitting up. I said we're partners now. I point, you shoot. Which part of the concept is difficult for you?"

"The partners part," Clint said, and picked pieced of laminated wood off the table, "I think you meant to say _prisoner_."

"Oh, you're always so picky. Why don't you order something? I'm having a cheeseburger."

Clint thought he was fucking around--or hallucinating--so he said, "Coffee," but then Wade disappeared into the kitchen and came back with two burgers and a mug. It felt a little like the fabric of reality was ripping, just a bit. 

"Please tell me this is a hide-out of some kind," Clint said. Pleaded. 

Wade put the dishes down with a little flourish and said, "Will that be all? Would you like to see the wine list?" Then, when Clint kept looking at him, flopped into the bench seat opposite him and sprawled sulkily. "Fine, fine. It's a hideout. There's a car around back. There's a mini-kitchen in the kitchen. Spoil everything. Ruiner."

Clint felt tired. It was worse than keeping up with Tony, because Tony at least followed a logical track. Even when he couldn't decipher it, Clint knew there was something that made sense underpinning the rambling. He could tune in and out and trust that eventually something would hang together. Wade, on the other hand, had a reasonable plan when Clint was sure he didn't, and when it seemed like he did, it sometimes ended up involving a third party who didn't exist. Or who only existed to Wade. 

Because there wasn't anything else to do, Clint drank the coffee. If Wade had spiked it again, at least it meant he wouldn't have to deal with the surreal restaurant or the car switch. The car abandonment. 

"This new car better be able to play the CDs," Clint said, "I'm not going anywhere without the violins."


	2. Chapter 2

Not only did the new car have a CD player, it also had a bunch of CDs stashed in the console, but mostly weird new age shit like _tree frogs and tropical rain_ or _forest wind and flute_. Wade kept switching between _winter birdsong_ and the chanting that Clint had tried to abandon with the station wagon. 

"Who the hell takes nature recordings on a camping trip?" Clint demanded, because the car was full of shit like an easy-erect tent, camp stove, and a tarp. The tarp, Clint figured, could also be for body disposal, and maybe his, but Wade looked hurt at the suggestion. At _all_ his suggestions.

"This is my personal collection," he grumbled, and switched _birdsong_ for _whalesong_ , "And if you _want_ me to kill you, all you have to do is say so."

Clint was tempted--just because it sounded like a dare--but there was the chance that Wade would actually follow through with it. Instead, he drove in silence and refused any food or drink Wade offered him and pointed out the ravine to their left several times, just to make sure Wade wouldn't forget that it would be a very bad idea to try anything. 

\-----

They switched cars twice, and killed a man once--or Clint killed a man and Wade killed a bunch--on another one of Wade's shit-hole town stop-overs, and ended up with another RV. 

Which was great, because the little car from the freakish restaurant hadn't had any room to stretch out in and Clint's side had been killing him ever since. He took whatever pills Wade shoved at him and, since the body disposal tarp had been ditched with the car, let himself enjoy the muzzy painlessness and the fold-out bed.

There was a comforter in the stowage underneath. It was the best thing that had happened since Natasha had shot him. 

"Are we switching cars because you're on a murder spree--"

"We."

"Because we're on a murder spree," Clint asked, from under it, his back tucked comfortably against the wall of the RV, which gave him a view of the entire cramped interior, and the illusion of safety, "or to dodge the Avengers?"

"Maybe I just like cars," Wade offered, "Maybe I like change. Maybe change is important for growth. Maybe some of us don't develop unhealthy attachments to mom cars."

Clint tuned him out. He was getting good at it.

\-----

Stopping to shower at a mostly empty reststop gave him the opportunity to poke at his side, and it didn't seem to be getting better too fast. Clint figured it was because at SHIELD he'd have been stuck on bedrest in medical, then handed over to Natasha or Steve to be threatened or lectured into _more_ bedrest, and instead he'd been lugged, shoved and carried between cars, up steps, laid out on roofs, and made to haul weaponry. 

Bruising extended up his ribs and down to his hip, pooling along the bone, deep purple and with a halo of green and yellow radiating across his belly. He bet his back looked worse. At least bruising-wise. The wounds themselves had been neatly cleaned up entry and exit. Clint didn't think Wade had done it. 

Clint didn't really think he'd have survived if Wade had done it. Even as careful as he'd been later, the amount of blood in the car had suggested more serious damage than could be fixed with the tape and bandages that seemed to have been the extent of Wade's first aid kit--more than adequate for a man with Wade's healing factor, woefully understocked for anybody else.

He pressed a hand to the ache, and let the hot water sluice over his neck and back. Wade was already banging on the door--had been for several minutes, continuously--but Clint ignored him. The rest stop had roomy shower stalls, way better than the cramped bathroom onboard the RV, and easier for him to move in when his side was radiating pain all the sway up to his fucking armpit.

"I hope you left me some water," Wade grouched and waited till he was dressed to cuff him to a sink's drainage pipe. "Every morning it's the same. You don't cook, you don't clean, you don't even try to look pretty for me, but you use up all the hot water."

"Someone could come in," Clint pointed out, because if Wade was evading the law and the Avengers, having someone handcuffed to the plumbing in a public restroom was probably a little suspicious looking to the public at large. It seemed like a good way to get someone to call the cops.

"Oh, don't start getting shy now," Wade said, from the other side of the stall door, and started singing as the water came on. Clint let his head rest against the tiled wall and made himself as comfortable as he could on the floor while Wade mangled an opera solo.

\-----

Wade slipped up, and even though the wise thing to do would have been to shut the hell up, Clint couldn't help himself. He waited until Wade was switching _songs from the rainforest canopy_ for Tuvan throat singing then said, "I know we're in Kentucky," and gloated.

Wade paused. Looked out the windshield. They were, as was usual when Clint was the one driving, in the middle of nowhere.

"Oh?" Wade asked, and Clint knew he was dangerous, but this was the first time he'd sounded like it. And then the threatening tone was gone and he was saying, "You haven't been a very good assassin, so--"

"I've been a _stellar_ assassin," Clint argued.

"Pish-posh," Wade said, waving a hand, "You've been nothing but trouble, and this sort of thing is exactly what I mean." He was pronouncing his words with a snippy sort of precision that reminded Clint a little of JARVIS, if he could be offended. "When I say no knowing things, I _mean_ no knowing things," he sighed and fluttered the fingers of one hand at Clint, "What a pity that now I'll have to kill you."

"Jesus _Christ_. We passed a fucking horse farm. It was on their _sign_. It's not _my_ fault what they call themselves." 

Wade looked at him for a second or two, head tilted incredulously and then patted him. "There, there. Don't get so upset. It was a joke. You take everything so _seriously_. _Honestly_. Have a sense of humor."

\-----

"You _could_ kill me," Clint offered, maybe a hundred miles after Wade had acquired banjo music and a banjo at some pit stop. Clint had acquired bananas, a loaf of bread, a quart of orange juice and a gallon jug of water, which had been a relief because Wade was back to feeding him instant noodles and frozen pies, but also awkward because any money he might have had in his clothing had burnt with them. He had the choice of shoplifting or whining at Wade like the world's most health conscious ten year old. 

"I thought you _liked_ string instruments?" Wade asked, studying a folder and eating Clint's bananas while Clint drove. He had little reading glasses on, but at least he'd ditched the hat. Wade tossed the banana peel out the window and reached for another. Clint scowled.

"If you eat all of those and then try to make me eat marshmallows for dinner, I swear to god--" Clint threatened. It was empty. There wasn't anything he could do to Wade that would stick for more than an hour, tops.

Wade shut the file. Checked a watch he wasn't wearing then crooned, "Oooh, looks like nap time for cranky assassins," and jerked a thumb to indicate the back of the RV. Clint stopped without pulling over--making sure to brake harshly, just because--and stormed to the back of the RV, where the foldaway bed was still blocking the hall. 

Wade threw the pez dispenser at him. "Take two and shoot for me in the morning."

"Seriously," Clint said, "Don't eat all my fucking food."

\-----

"Next job!" Wade announced, throwing his arms up in a grand _ta-dah_ motion. They were on a flat roof, and Clint had kind of figured that was why they were there. The rifle had made a re-appearance, and the handcuffs. Clint sighed. It was hot. It wasn't morning at _all_. 

"Keep your eye on the queen of hearts!" Wade was narrating, while Clint ignored him and checked his rifle. "Now you see her, now you don't, now you--Clint!"

"Yeah, yeah. Now I don't," Clint said, "I'm listening."

Wade made an annoyed sound. A heartfelt sigh. It was so gratifying it was almost childish, but Clint smirked anyway. 

"Who are we killing this time?" Clint asked, just to push it, and Wade sat down and crossed his arms over his chest. 

"You learn slow, don't you? Did I pick the stupid puppy from the pound? Should I have taken Starkers?" Tony and Wade trying to out-talk each other would be amazing. Assured mutual destruction, as much as Wade _was_ destructible, which wasn't very much. Tony, though. Tony would be left _seething_. 

"Don't get to know stuff," Clint recited, because Wade looked like he was waiting for it. He looked away from the rifle and Wade did a card trick with a stack of polaroids. 

"Pick a card, any card." 

Clint picked.

"Nope. That's not the guy. Pick again."

\-----

This time, he had three targets to pick off. It was lot for conventional assassination sniping, but not much compared to Avengers jobs. Of course, Avengers jobs tended to be more of a running, dodging, beat back the hordes deal. And this was definitely not an Avengers deal. He couldn't count a single time that he'd been cuffed by the ankle to a waterpump's housing during an Avengers gig. 

It was a pain in the ass to be shooting that way, his movements too constrained, and no way to shift much and still be able to reach his rifle or see through the scope. Scooting forward tugged painfully at the cuff, but Clint did it anyway. The pull in his side hurt way more, anyway.

He was thinking, _I think we're still in Kentucky_ , collecting what little sense of place he had, when the first target appeared. Just for a moment, framed in a window, yelling. It was enough. 

Whoever he'd been yelling _at_ ducked back out of the room as he went down, and Clint swore. Jerked at the cuff. He'd been fucking made. 

\-----

The worst part, Clint thought as he heard the thunder of feet on the stairs below, was that he wasn't even hidden. Just laid out on his belly on the roof, with his fucking rifle. _Hey guys_ , he thought, a little hysterically, _this isn't what it looks like_.

He twisted onto his back and wrangled the rifle over. If by some miracle it was Wade coming up those steps, then he'd just have to regenerate his face. Clint wasn't taking the chance. The door kicked open. Clint fired.

One shot. Two. The rifle didn't have enough rounds. 

"Fuck," he said, and let himself fall back, " _Fuck_."

And then the miracles of chance that followed Wade's insanity kicked in, because one of the guys said, "Boss? He's chained up," and didn't instantly kill him.

"Goddammit," Clint swore, rattling the fucking cuff even though it might have just saved his life. Once, he'd been about to get his own arrow fed to him when out of nowhere the Hulk had come through a wall and tossed alien hitman and alien rent-a-cop all over the place. 

That wasn't going to happen now. 

"Boss?" the guy was saying, "Boss?" obviously not getting a response from his radio, and Clint tried not to grin. Wade was a fucking psychopath, but he was a psychopath who was damn good at his job. For a brief, troubling second Clint felt a wash of pride at being associated with him, then felt nauseated by it. 

"Who are you working for?" Guy demanded, sounding more than a little freaked out. Clint mumbled.

"What? What the fuck are you saying?" He had a gun, and Clint had a water pump chained to his leg, so he figured he couldn't blame the guy too much for acting like a cocky amateur and sauntering over. 

It wasn't like Clint didn't have _one_ free leg. He used it and a sneaky twist of his body to bring the guy down, sending his gun clattering across the roof. The rest of him landed on Clint. It felt like his side exploded. Like his rib might have cracked. His breath left him in a wheeze, but the guy was trying to get up, so he raised the rifle and brought it down on his head.

It was heavy. It _hurt_. He tried to think about that instead of the fact that he was bludgeoning a guy to death with it. 

Then he kicked the body off himself and threw up. 

\-----

"Wade?" Clint tried, every so often. He was coming up with other things he didn't want to think about. Like that he didn't owe Wade loyalty, and could have said, _I was kidnapped by some Deadpool asshole, let me go and let's kill him_ , or _Yeah, take me to your boss, but could I borrow a phone? And also where are we?_

He also tried to not think about the possibility that Guy hadn't been a _bad_ guy. That maybe Wade just had a contract. Maybe he was security. Maybe he was even _good_.

"Don't look at the body, don't look at the body. And don't look at the sun," Clint told himself, and closed his eyes. He was thirsty. He was bleeding all over the roof. Where the fuck was Wade?

"Sorry, Guy," he said after a while, not looking over, "That wasn't really fair," and then, "Shouldn't have dropped your weapon. Amateur."

\-----

"You only got one of them," someone was saying, and turned his face. Clint threw up again.

He recognized Wade's voice, and tried to tell him to quit moving him, but the words came out as a rasp.

"You got me killed," Wade whispered, and Clint felt himself hauled to his feet. His side screamed protest. "So don't whine. Resurrection takes as long as resurrection takes."

"And it looks like you shot the wrong guys."

"Gave me 'xactly three bullets," Clint managed, because he wasn't taking that shit, and Wade snorted.

"I _thought_ you never miss."

\-----

Clint drank every time Wade remembered that he'd been left in the sun shackled to a pump, which wasn't all of the time, but frequent enough that he wasn't entirely miserable. His side hurt, worse than he remembered it being at any time since Wade's not-apartment. Breathing pulled at it. Trying to move sent pain shooting up his side and even down his leg. 

"Don't die while I'm driving," Wade said, turning the airconditioning vents on him, "We have to get out of here."

"Where's here?" Clint tried, just because he had to. He'd been too hot on the roof, but the air blowing on him was making him freeze and the comforter was out of reach somewhere. Wade patted him.

"Ohio," he said. Then he went to start the car and put one of the concertos on.

\-----

It wasn't so much that Wade was an asshole to him, but that Wade dealt with him like a kid put in charge of a pet he had no idea how to care for. Like the time he and Barney had found a baby squirrel in their yard and tried to raise it in secret in their father's tool shed for three days, until it inevitably died. Clint remembered trying all his favorites, chocolate chip cookies, or bits of brownie from school lunch. Sweet corn he'd stolen from his own dinner.

In pretty much the same way that Wade fussed and tried to make him eat funnel cakes and potstickers and then more canned pasta, and then moped and sulked when Clint refused or threw it back up. 

"Just water," Clint groaned, when Wade tried to get him to drink something sickeningly bright blue. It could have been sports drink, but considering what else Wade had offered him it seemed unlikely. "And violins," he added, when Wade looked like he was about to switch back to tree frogs, "leave the violins."

"I don't know what it is you have against bongos," Wade chided, "You've become such a music snob."

\-----

Clint thought they drove for two days, but couldn't be sure, because most of the time he drifted, one hand pressed protectively over his re-injured side, waking long enough to complain about Wade's choice of music, or how bumpy the road was, or just to complain for the hell of it. 

It was nice to have an excuse to be the unreasonable pain in the ass for once. 

Wade wasn't fazed. He played his banjo, he argued with non-existent passengers, he backseat drove _himself_ \--a critical monologue that he seemed to genuinely resent--and he shouted at Clint to, "Cheer up, buckaroo," every time he grumbled.

"Where're we going?" Clint slurred, when the terrain got hilly again, but he seemed to have used up his good-assassin cred, or Wade no longer felt guilty about being temporarily dead and leaving him to goons and sunstroke.

"Nah-nah-nah," he tutted, and Clint decided it wasn't worth the goddamn effort. Eventually they'd pass _some_ kind of signage and it was more likely that Wade would miss his info-gathering if he didn't keep drawing attention to it. 

\-----

Wade tried to make them change cars, but it was a no-go. 

"Just leave me," Clint tried, when his legs refused to hold him and his side refused Wade's attempts to haul him. He hoped it sounded magnanimous, "Someone'll find me." He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be found. He had a criminal kill list again instead of just a shady government sanctioned SHIELD kill list. 

Wade looked at him like he was nuts, which was more than a bit insulting. At the same time, Clint was a bit impressed by how expressive he could be through the mask. "No one will find you," he said, "Where do you think we _are_?"

"I don't _know_ where we are," Clint yelled, or tried to. It came out as more of a loud rasp. "How the hell am I supposed to know where we are? You fucking _drug me_ every time we get near a fucking _miles to_ sign."

"You'll starve before anyone finds you," Wade went on, ignoring the accusation, "There's nothing left in the mini fridge but half a Kit-kat." 

"Who the hell saves half a Kit-kat?" Who the hell did half of what Wade did. Who the hell kidnapped people right off battlefields for no damn reason. 

"I saved it for _you_ ," Wade said, sounding hurt. Then, quieter, "Because I ate all your fruit."

Damn it. "I want real food. _Real food_ , Wade."

Wade sniffed, "You're so ungrateful. Don't I put a roof over your head? Shoes on your feet? Expose you to culture and take you places?"

By 'culture' Wade probably meant the banjo music. Clint put his back to him, even though he had to roll onto his injured side to do it. 

"Just go to sleep, dopeyhead," Wade said crankily, "I don't want to listen your kvetching anymore."

He must have been actually annoyed, because he popped out the violin concerto and went back to singing along to _whalesong and surf_.

\-----

"We might not have a call to trace," Tony said, dropping a file onto the kitchen table. It landed with a flop, a couple of sheets of print out sliding out of it. "But we have a body count."

Steve looked at it. Looked up. Then, at Tony's nod, reached over and pulled the file in front of him. Flipped it open. The photos included showed bullet wounds instead of arrows, but the work had Clint written all over it--the projected firing angle impossible for most marksmen, but nothing at all for Clint. The results were effortlessly tidy. Single shot, instant kill. 

Except for the man bludgeoned in the head. That wasn't Clint's usual method, but it wasn't like he was useless up close. Steve had trained with him and he knew what Clint was capable of if his position was compromised. 

"Do we have anything tying these guys together?" Steve asked, because Clint _could_ have done this but it surprised him that Clint _would_. That he had. 

"They're filth and they work for filth, and other filth probably took out the hit," Tony said, dismissively, "Except for the one that's a prince. He's _royal_ filth."

"Why would Clint--"

Tony shrugged, "We'll find him, Cap. We'll find him, and then we'll drag him home and then we'll ask a thousand and one questions." He tapped a photo--the guys on the roof--"This was a few days ago. So we know he wasn't dead then."

"So he's not likely to be dead now," Natasha put in, and picked up the photo. Scanned it. The corner of her lip tugged downwards.

Tony plucked it back. "There, there, Romanov. Try not to think about how you shot him."

\-----

Clint let himself think for exactly four seconds about what he was doing, and then he pushed the Clown's head back and popped two of the pills into his hand. He probably shouldn't, was what the annoying nagging voice in the back of his head--that sounded like Tony, but talked like Steve--insisted, but his side hurt, and even though it had to be past midnight, Wade was still going strong, driving too fast on the bumpy road. The bouncing was agonizing. 

Clint swallowed them dry, then listened to the treefrogs CD Wade was arguing with until he started to feel numb and sleepy. 

"You out _again_?" was the last thing he heard and noted that Wade sounded cranky. Good. Let him be pissed. 

\-----

He woke to arguing--human voices, not Wade and the treefrogs--and for one terrifying moment, he thought he'd started to hear Wade's imaginary people. That he was inside Wade's head. And then he cracked his eyes open and saw someone leaning in the doorway of the RV, back to him. Red hair.

"N'tasha?"

"I don't know what you think you're doing," she was saying, to Wade, and the accent was all wrong. Clint frowned. "But there are _people_ going out of their _minds_ looking for him."

"Aw, Red. He's _fine_."

"Fine? Wade! His side looks like mincemeat."

"It didn't look that bad to me," Wade said, in his sulking voice. Not-Natasha made a very Natasha-like sound of irritation.

"That's because you have a completely _fucked up_ injury scale. You cut off your own _fingers_ , for Christ's sake, just to--"

"It was just _fingers_ ," Wade moped, and sounded like he wanted to scuff his toe, "and they grew back. Eventually. Look, don't be _mad_. I _found_ him."

"He's not a puppy. You can't just 'find' him and take him with you." Not-Natasha snapped, and turned. Saw Clint watching. 

"Hey," Clint said, and then, probably because he was still a little high, said, "He wasn't that bad."

"Don't defend him," she said, "What is _wrong_ with you?" but came and put a hand to his forehead. Clint flinched. Not for any reason. Probably just because Wade was the only person he'd seen--not counting targets--in what felt like weeks, and the most he'd touched anyone during that whole time was the guy he'd beaten to death with his rifle.

"Sorry," Clint muttered, "Tired."

"Yeah," she said, "I bet y'are. You look like hell." She was a lot nicer than Wade. Wade was a fucking ass. "Jesus, Wade. He's burning up. I can't believe you haven't killed him yet."

"Agent of SHIELD," Clint pointed out, and tried to sound tough. It didn't impress her any more than it would have Nat.

"Hush, sweetie," she said absently, then went back to telling Wade off. Clint liked her.

"Where are we?" Clint tried, and felt the warm feeling of assured victory as Wade's mask crunched in that way that meant he was going narrow-eyed. 

"Terry!" Wade whined, before she could give an answer, and Clint smirked and settled back. It was good enough. Red, Not-Nat, Terry, whoever, had Wade on the ropes. He would just listen and enjoy watching him squirm. 

"Theresa Cassidy," she announced belatedly, and held her hand out. Clint tried to shake it, but the angle was weird and he couldn't shift his own weight with the way he was lying, and in the end she just caught his fingers and gave them a careful jiggle. "And you're Clint Barton, misplaced Avenger. Your face has been all over the proverbial milkbox."

"I was kidnapped," Clint said, and she fished in her pocket and came up with a phone. A little gem-shaped bob dangling off it.

"I heard. What's your home phone number, Avenger?" she asked.

\-----

"I'm in New York," Clint said, like he was trying for casual. He sounded, actually, like he did after Tony had dragged him out for a weekend on the town, rough and not quite all there. 

"Maybe you should think about dropping in then," Tony said, matching his tone, fingers playing over his keyboard. Tracing the call. 

"No. I'm not--not in the _city_."

"Upstate, huh? Going for a little B and B are you, Hawkeye? I know a cozy little place--" Clint made an annoyed, tired sound, and Tony dropped it. Asked, "Are you okay? You've been busy, for a guy missing half his guts."

"Wasn't that bad," Clint said, "I--You saw, huh?"

"We'll deal with it," Steve cut in, "Tell us where you are." Clint laughed. Distant and tinny, and Tony wasn't sure he could lay that entirely on the connection, which was pretty good, for once, now that he had a proper phone and one that Wade wasn't tampering with.

"I just wanted to let you know I was okay," Clint said, "You can stop chasing me."

"What? Barton, have you scrambled your--" There was the sound of brief scuffle, someone talking in the background and Clint saying, "Hey," and then a new voice came on the line. Female and irritated.

"This phone belongs to Theresa Cassidy," Tony said, reading off his trace. "Hi there. I think you have something of ours, Theresa Cassidy."

"Well I don't want it. You can come pick him up." 

Tony took a second to think about that, and to dissect her tone, then decided that Clint hadn't seemed particularly alarmed. "Is he--?"

"He looks like hell. Wade couldn't keep a cactus alive, let alone your--Whoa shit. They're--Gotta go. Track the phone, Iron Man. I'll try to keep the--Keep _one_ of them alive anyway."

"Try to make it _our_ one," Tony said, "because I'm not up for a trade. Deadpool would probably eat my houseplants."

Then there was shouting and the phone hung up.

\-----

"Where do you think you're going?" Theresa demanded, storming back as Clint considered lowering himself the last step to the ground. It was a fucking _drop_. Easing himself down meant using muscles that maybe didn't actually _look_ like ground meat, but damn if they didn't feel like it. 

He was still contemplating the earth a good foot and change below with bleary resentment, gripping the edge of the door when Theresa hung up and shoved her phone away.

"Go ahead. Jump," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "And then I'll just have to scrape you into the car and you'll _still_ end up at a hospital."

Clint glared, but at the dirt. Unreasonably angry at its distance. "Fuck,” he said. 

Theresa shuffled him back inside. "Your team's coming to get you," she said, "Now lie down or sit down before you fall over."

Clint considered fighting her, but the word that came out of his mouth was, "Okay," and since he'd said it, he decided he might as well go along with it, and stumbled the goddamn _mile_ back to the fold out bed and lowered himself onto the edge of it. 

"Everything was fine till Wade left me on a roof," he told her, putting a hand over his side as he let himself collapse backwards. Hitting the mattress, even soft as it was, hurt enough to squeeze dampness from the corners of his eyes.

"Hey. I was _dead_ ," Wade called, from outside, "That wasn't fun _either_ , alright?"

"Wade," Theresa snapped, and Wade shut up. Pouted, but shut up. Neat trick. 

Or at least, he shut up for a bit.

"We should take your car," he piped back up, a few minutes later, even though he could have said it right away, before Clint had struggled all the way back inside, "since this vehicle is stolen."

\-----

Changing cars meant abandoning things, especially since Theresa insisted on not putting up with 'bullshit' which tragically included the set of violin cds, but not, somehow, _treefrogs and flute_. Or Wade's banjo and fishing hat. Theresa didn't tell him he looked like an idiot, so Clint didn't bother either this time, and concentrated instead on the way he couldn't really lie down across the back seat of the little car. He wasn't sure how he was going to get out of the two-door. He'd barely managed to get in, and that with manhandling from Wade and grouching about how he was easier to manage when he was unconscious. 

Theresa probably didn't approve of that last, because she gave Wade another look. She reminded Clint a bit of Steve, actually, and the disgruntled looks he gave the rest of the team, now and then, when they exercised their right to act like civilians. 

There was a speaker mounted in the door right by Clint's head, and rhythmic croaking came out of it, along with the sound of rain and a single flute. He folded his arm over his head and missed the comforter in the RV, and the station wagon they'd abandoned and the decrepit mill where it was quiet and there were no goddamn frogs.

Or at least, not ones accompanied by wind instruments.

"I can't take this shit," Theresa said, after about four minutes and ejected Wade's cd, set it neatly in its box with one hand still on the steering wheel, then chucked it out the window. Clint cheered her silently, and then out loud when she flicked the radio on and for the first time in forever, there was the mention of place and date and time of day. 

It felt strange--like coming back from an op to find he'd missed a global event--to discover that while Wade had been dragging him around the country's backroads, there was still Tuesday and commercials and pop music. 

Theresa turned the radio down at the soft noise he let escape and asked, "Okay back there, Avenger?" which--right. Avenger. 

He had so much explaining to do and it was a toss up what Cap would think about the fact that his resistance had been largely non-existent. He'd just taken the shots Wade had set up, and when he hadn't it hadn't been for lack of trying. "Wade," he tried, but Theresa was the one who glanced back.

"Take it easy, we're almost there," she said, and then her phone jangled. Wade picked it up.

\-----

"Oh. It's _you_ ," Tony said, hitting speaker for Steve's benefit, "Where's Hawkeye?"

"Everybody says that like I'm a bad guy or something," Wade said, sounding hurt, "You're the ones who shot him." 

Natasha flinched at that, and Steve made a face at her that was maybe supposed to be a supportive smile, but failed miserably at getting that message across. "We want him back," Tony said.

"Maybe he doesn't want to go back," Wade countered, and a female voice snapped at him to shut up. There were car sounds, so they were on the move, but Tony's trace wasn't showing much change of location. They were driving pretty slow. Too slow to be making any kind of getaway. "I hope you're not assisting that lunatic in his kidnapping and holding-with-coercion of our injured."

"Give Clint the phone," Steve interrupted, butting in with _Captain_ firmness, and Wade made a whiny kid noise and after a muted thump and clunk, and a chimed jingle, Clint picked up.

"Twenty minutes, buddy," Tony told him, "We're on the way."

There was a long silence, and then Clint said, reluctantly, "Alright."

"Alright? What the hell is _that_? You want to hear about the nervous breakdown you've been giving Steve and Natasha?" 

Clint's breath puffed against the phone's mic, but there was no answer. Tony said, "Clint? Hey!" but then the call cut out. 

"Goddamn it," Steve said, and Tony looked at him and ran through a few comment ideas, then decided it was too easy and let it go.

\-----

By the time they pulled up outside an old weather-board covered house, Clint had figured two things out. One, Theresa wasn't in on whatever it was that Wade was into, but she knew enough about it to have opinions, and two, those opinions were mostly, but not entirely against Wade. 

She _was_ against the abducting and holding prisoner, though. At least there was that. 

Clint shifted around until he could kick the back of Wade's seat, getting claustrophobic now that they were stopped and he was waiting to climb out. "Do you see what I've had to put up with?" Wade asked, gesturing at the back seat like Clint was their recalcitrant child. 

"Yeah, my heart bleeds for you," Theresa said, folding her own seat forward so she could lean in and peer at Clint, "Need a hand? I can't carry you all the way up the front steps, but if you sit tight--"

Clint had had enough of sitting tight. He grabbed for the edge of the door and hauled himself as upright as he could, then half-stumbled, half-fell out of the car. Leaned against it with his hand pressed to his side, panting and pretending his eyes weren't watering from the effort. 

Theresa huffed, but put a hand on his arm for a second, maybe to make sure he wasn't about to tip over, then went around the back of the car and popped the little trunk. Grumbled, "Idiots," and then yelled, “Wade, get your guns out of my car. I don't want to see them, and I don't want to get pulled over with them."

"What?" Wade asked, sounding hurt. "You're not staying? I have this place all stocked up for winter. Pickled all my own vegetables. Canned my fruit harvest--" Wade trailed off as he hefted the gun case and tucked one of the handguns into the waistband of Clint's jeans, like he thought they were heading into a firefight and not into a house that it seemed like he'd secured, if not outright owned.

But then, it was possible that this was just another random hideaway. Clint couldn't really tell, and when he gave Wade a questioning look all he got was a shrug and grin--he could tell by the way the mask pulled--like Wade thought the exchange was about his girlfriend being unreasonable and wanted them to get along. 

Theresa gave them both a flat, unimpressed look, and Clint--maybe a little weirdly--forced himself to straighten up and take his own weight, while Wade got busy arming himself with the other gun, and slipping into a vest Clint hadn't seen before. It matched the fishing hat. 

He stopped. Looked at Wade. Asked, "Are you ditching me here?" surprising himself by how opposed to that idea he was. "You better leave me a can opener this time."

"What?" Wade sounded hurt. His hat slid into an appropriate droop, sitting lopsided on his head. "We're not _ditching_ you. You think that's what I'm like? You think I haven't seen that movie?"

He could mean any movie, or none at all, or one he was making up right then in his head. Clint sighed. "Okay. But your girlfriend called in the backup. You realize that, right?"

"Backup shmackup. Let's go inside and make pancakes, barricade some doors and plan a last stand."

Clint wasn't sure he wanted to take a last stand against Steve and Tony. Definitely didn't want to take one--coerced or otherwise--against Natasha. But he said, "Okay," grabbed what he could of his stuff, and then concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and aimed himself at the house porch.

\-----

Wade did, actually, make pancakes. From mix that had been sitting in a plastic jug in a kitchen cupboard, and there was no way to tell it had been there forever, or if Wade kept the place as secretly well stocked as the abandoned diner had been. Clint decided to round it up to 'real food' anyway and stubbornly worked his way through the short stack while Wade changed track and started dragging furniture around.

"I'd ask if you know what he's planning," he asked eventually, around a mouthful, "but I'm not really sure I want to know."

"I'm not sure _I_ want to know," Theresa said, and it was nice to not be confused by himself anymore, "Guess your RV wasn't low key enough a getaway car."

That made sense. A mobile home wasn't exactly the subtlest way to race away from an assassination, and that was probably his fault, since he'd been the one who'd accidentally blown their stake-out and was the one who couldn't get out of the RV on his own. On the upper level, though, everything about this mess was _Wade's_ fault. Possibly Natasha's, seen from a certain angle.

"Great. So my last meal is going to be fastcakes?" 

"That's the spirit," Theresa grinned, and chucked him gently in the shoulder. It felt sarcastic. Clint couldn't really blame her. It seemed like she spent time with Wade pretty often, and that probably didn't do much for anyone's patience except maybe test it.

Outside, Wade was walking the perimeter--or _a_ perimeter, anyway--with a focus that was a lot more _focused_ than Clint was used to. The whole last stand thing was maybe not a joke, but the farmhouse was a fucking terrible location for that kind of thing. Clint hadn't been aware of a tail, and even though his awareness in general was in pretty sorry shape, he thought that probably they had some time before anyone actually caught up to them.

Given a vote, he'd vote to run, but that didn't seem like Wade's style.

Theresa, on the other hand, didn't seem thrilled to be caught up in the sort of messes that involved masked villains, stolen campers, and single tracks of Italian opera set on repeat. Clint glanced away, out the window, to make sure Wade was still busy outside, then whispered, "Isn't there a back way we can sneak out of?"

"Think you're up for much sneaking, do ye?" she asked, and she had a point. Getting up the front steps and into the kitchen had been a challenge, and a hasty, stealthy exit was probably out of the question. In the OK Corral kind of situation it looked like Wade was setting up for, Clint would probably be most useful as a human shield. 

"Damn it." It was agreement. He wasn't sure Theresa was picking up on that, and didn't really care. Possibly, Wade was rubbing off on him, at least in the one-sided communication department.

"Don't worry," Theresa said, unfazed. Maybe a bit amused, but in the kind of irritated way that Wade inspired. "I'll keep you safe till your pick-up gets here."

Clint started to say that he could keep himself safe, thanks, but it was pretty obvious that he hadn't really that done much to stop Wade from dragging him all over the country side. Had probably helped create this last stand problem, by going along with Wade's plans.

Which was the weirdest part--that Wade seemed to have a plan. The way he was pacing out measurements in the yard definitely looked like he'd pre-organized this part. Clint had thought that the randomly driving around thing had been about throwing Avengers off their trail, but all of a sudden, Wade didn't seem to _care_ that they'd not only phoned the Avengers off a registered cellphone number, but had invited them up for the afternoon.

Theresa gave him a look, then her expression changed to one of exasperation. "And then we can let Wade get back his _disposal_ business," she continued, delayed, as if she'd been aware that Clint had been on a whole other mental track, and had been giving him time to get to the end of the thought.

"I know what that is," Clint told her, a bit testily, "You don't have to dress it up. You know I already shot a guy on this trip, right?" A few guys, but apparently she didn't know that, because the look she gave him was surprised. Not really shocked though. She seemed used to Wade. 

Clint stabbed his last piece of pancake. Slouched, then winced, tried to straighten up, and winced again. Said "Fuck", and threw the fork back down.

"Hey," Theresa held her hands up what was either a peace gesture or a shut-up one, "I'm just here to make sure he gives you back."

Clint glowered. Maybe sulked. "I go where I want," he snapped. "I'm a big boy."

"Feel free to click your heels together anytime," she said, "Until then, let me get you some new band-aids."

\-----

Terry the Red was a much better nurse than Wade, but Clint didn't think he could say so without making it weird so he just grunted his thanks as he shrugged his way into a clean shirt--worn flannel and found in one of the closets and smelling like dust and cedar. It was soft and a bit big and mostly made Clint want to take a nap, even though Wade had moved on from whatever he'd been doing in the yard and was back inside, shoving furniture against all the entrances.

"I've seen this movie," Clint remarked, "I think it had more cowboys."

"Shush."

Clint glared, but couldn't come up with a comment and ended up shushing mostly by default. 

"If this is a trap, I'm not shooting Avengers," he said, even though he was pretty sure that wasn't the case. When the silence had gone on for a while and Wade had shoved a sofa against the front door, he suggested, "You should just let me go."

"And you'll what? Return to the wild?"

Clint had been thinking more along the lines _borrow the car_ or, in a pinch, try to hitchhike to the nearest town he could borrow a phone in, then call Steve, let _him_ call the authorities, and then throw himself upon the mercy of _you've let me off the hook for assassination before_.

Wade made a snappy-fingers pointing gesture at him, like he'd come up with the right answer on a quiz, even though he hadn't said anything, and Clint frowned. Pointed out, "I'm not really any use to you."

"Aw. You've been _plenty_ of use to me." Wade sounded encouraging, but this time the enthusiasm was a little distracted. 

"What about _her_?" Clint asked, "Are you really gonna--"

"Is that what this is about?"

"What?"

Wade stopped what he was doing and put a hand on his hip. Tilted his head in disappointment. " _Really_ now, Hawkeye."

Clint set his teeth. "Really gonna get her involved in your mafia firefight?" he finished.

"I need her for the--" Wade sounded shifty as fuck, and that was new, but only because Wade was usually utterly oblivious about his shiftiness. "Help," he finished carefully, and when Clint kept scowling, sighed. "But not _more_ than you. You're helpful, too. Oh, for god's sake. Here. Have something shiny." Wade handed him another gun. "Are we good now?"

Clint felt dizzy. He wasn't sure if it was Wade's bullshit or the gunshot or the lingering effects of heatstroke. At least the sting of his sunburn was dulling and, if he lived long enough, would fade into gross peeling pretty soon.

"Yeah, alright," he said, and took the new gun.

\-----

Trying to talk sense with Wade was disorienting, and on top of the disorientation he was already dealing with, it seemed easier to give up, crawl up the stairs to one of the bedrooms, and collapse on his good side. Maybe he'd sleep through everything and wake up in lockup. Even if Steve was there to glare disapprovingly about his recent life choices, it would be a step up.

It was at least a plan, and it seemed like a half-way decent one right up until the front lawn exploded. 

Clint considered getting up. Then considered not getting up. For at least a minute and a half, continuing to lie there while pretending everything was okay seemed like a perfectly reasonable option. 

Then he cursed, rolled to his belly and pushed to his elbows, waited for the room to swim sideways and back and come to a full stop, then grabbed for his guns. Jamming one back into his waistband, and clicking the safety off on the other. Outside, something flashed, and dirt sprayed against the windows.

He should be worried, maybe, but the tearing feeling in his side as he shoved himself upright and the heat swimming behind his eyes seemed a lot more immediate. "Wade?"

Nothing.

Then another boom and the sound of someone running inside the house. Clint stumbled out to the hall, saw movement, and fired.

Wade yelped. 

"Shit."

" _That's_ why you didn't get a lot of bullets," Wade yelled, sounding more annoyed at having been shot than actually phased. He stormed up the hallway to hustle Clint back into the bedroom, where the windows faced the exploding lawn. There was nothing about the house that was bullet proof or might provide protection, and Clint considered shooting Wade again so he'd let go and let him take _actual_ cover, then remembered the comment about his ammunition ration, and didn't.

"Where's--"

"Get down."

"Get _down_? We should be getting _out_ , there's--"

"And hold your ears."

"What?"

"Oh nevermind," Wade sighed, "I'll do it," and clapped his hands over Clint's ears, just as an earsplitting _eeee_ started. Clint jerked at it, but Wade had a pretty good grip. His fingers dug in as he squashed Clint's head between his palms, and he curled in on himself as the volume increased. Hunching until Clint was pulled down and crushed against his chest. It muffled but didn't shut out the screech. The sound was impossible. Loud and so high that it felt like his _bones_ were vibrating from it, and might shatter like glass. It hurt enough that Clint dropped the gun to put his own hands over Wade's, to try to shut more of the sound out. 

"What is that?" he shouted, pointlessly, and halfway to panic and more or less into Wade's sternum. There was no way he could beat the _eeee_ for volume, but he yelled "What's going on?" at Wade anyway, then repeated it because screaming helped.

The sound stopped. For the length of an extended breath, leaving Clint hollering, "On?" into the silence, and then it started again, rising in pitch this time, then moving away and fading. Not all the way, but enough to be bearable.

Then Wade let him go. 

"What the hell?" Clint asked, shoving away from him to fall backwards onto his butt, and into an undignified sprawl. "What--?"

"Shh."

"Don't fucking _shh_ me. What's going on? Who the hell is out th--?"

"I can't hear you," Wade cut him off. Talking so loud that it was almost a shout. "Let my eardrums grow back. Hang on."

Clint hung. Maybe hyperventilated a little while he did it.

"Are you breathing?" Wade asked, after a bit, "Is that you?" He leaned in to peer at Clint, then turned an ear towards him while Clint tried to get his panting under control, made a series of expressions while he tilted his head around, then said, "Yep. I think I'm good now. You were saying?"

"What's going on?" Clint repeated. The words coming out surprisingly calm. A little dazed. He fumbled to get his gun back in hand and into a functional grip.

"We're in a firefight."

He wasn't sure why he'd expected a useful answer. Hardly any of the answers Wade had ever given him had been _information_. Or at least not _useful_ information. Going with it seemed easier than fighting. "Who do I aim at?"

No answer. Wade was busy assembling something. It seemed very rifle-like, in general, but the pieces Wade was pulling out of his stupid fishing vest were alien and weird, some of them lighting up with a muted glow as they screwed into place.

"What is that?"

Wade looked at him. Dubiously. Like Clint was the one not firing on all cylinders, and to be fair, the thing in his hands had a pretty obvious gun shape. Fine.

Clint tried, "What's it for?"

"You, so cheer up."

"What's it _do_?" Clint rephrased, tucking his own gun away, more enthusiastic about the mystery rifle than maybe he should have been or wanted to admit.

"Dunno." Wade screwed a few more pieces together. Frowned critically, then moved a couple around, flipped some switches, then pushed it into Clint's hands, reaching around him at the same time to steal one of the guns back. 

"Where did you--?" Clint ran his hands over it, testing the heft, sighting down the barrel, "Is this what you were chasing down?"

"This and things like this, and _we_. I can share credit. Unhog the limelight. Sing duets. Save the world from experimental tech falling into the wrong hands and being bartered on the international black market."

"Yeah, yeah." 

"Cover me." That wasn't what he'd been expecting, but before he could ask _what_ again, Wade was out the window. "And shove something in your ears," he shouted, halfway down the rainspout. Already recovered from Clint's gunshot in all of maybe six minutes, and Clint tried hard to hate him for it, but couldn't scrape together the energy.

"I don't know what this thing _does_ ," he shouted back, unwisely peering over the sill of the window Wade had gone out of. Outside, the yard was a mess. Pocked with craters, and, out beyond that, armored cars were set up into a barricade, people moving around behind it and yelling. Normally, that wouldn't phase Clint too much, but his mobility was limited, Wade was a nutcase, and he still had no clue what was happening or where Theresa was.

Wade, though, was sprinting for a line of trees, dodging around in a jagged beeline, and Clint couldn't tell if he thought that was actually effective, or if he was just being an asshole. 

That last was likely enough that Clint almost wanted to let him take a few hits and test the limits of his effective invulnerability, but he was supposed to provide cover fire, and with the new gun humming in his hands like a living thing, he had to admit he _wanted_ to provide cover fire.

Or wanted to fire the gun, anyway. It pretty much added up to the same thing.

His hands were shaky. He had to prop the muzzle of the thing up on the window sill, which wasn't ideal. It restricted his movement, but not enough that he couldn't line up a shot, searching left and right until he got one of the armored cars solidly in his sights. 

The he took a breath, counted to a randomly selected number--four--and pulled the trigger. 

The shot was silent. Hardly even a vibration. Just the hum that had been buzzing against his hands going suddenly and dramatically still as, even with his eyes shut, everything lit up.

"Oh shit," Clint breathed. It was beautiful. Magical. And possibly had nuked Wade. Clint hoped he could survive it. "Holy fuck."

Something exploded in the yard. Wade's voice following--thank god--shouting, "Just a landmine," for what was likely Clint's benefit.

Clint got his head up to yell something back. Some comment about _just_ or _landmine_ , but before he could get a word out the _eeee_ started up again, and, before he could react to _that_ , light burst all around him and the windows exploded inward.

 _Fuck, they have one too_ , he thought, and then his back hit something and everything went blissfully silent and dark.

\-----

When he came back to awareness, he was outside, the house was on fire, and something was swooping around overhead, emitting that _eeee_ , but it was muffled and far away now, which was a relief until Clint remembered being told to stuff his ears. He hoped the sound muting was being caused by concussion, and head trauma wasn't usually at the top of his list of preferred injury, but hanging around with Wade had changed a lot of what he'd thought were set-in-stone priorities.

He was hunched behind Theresa's little car and it didn't seem like anyone had dragged him there, so Clint figured he'd stumbled out on his own, on autopilot, and barefoot, because he'd kicked his boots off when he'd lain down to take that stupid nap. He hadn't noticed earlier, but some of the pebbles under his feet were too sharp to ignore. That might slow him down a bit. At least he still had the rifle.

Wade was no where to be seen, but there was a steady pop of gunfire from further around the front of the house. It wasn't anything that could combat the light flash silent destruction of the new rifle, and practical near-immortality aside, some assistance might be in order. He forced himself up to his knees, steadied the rifle over the hood of the car, found a workable angle, and hoped to not ignite up the fuel lines when he pulled the trigger.

The yard lit up. The car jolted, but didn't explode. Clint hissed in celebration and slid back to hunker down, panting and grinning and dizzy with exertion and adrenaline rush. Wade wanted him to sharpshoot, which meant that, possibly, the gun didn't have unlimited shots and Wade had specific targets. This wasn't an elegant pick 'em off weapon, though. This left destruction as messy as the explosives Wade had planted under and around the driveway, and that wasn't Clint's usual style, but it was still pretty great.

The screech picked up again, and Clint's hands tightened on the gun, but this time it set his teeth on edge, but nothing worse. Covering him, Clint realized, or maybe protecting the little car, because he was pretty sure the sound was coming from Theresa. Either way, it was vibrating bullets out of the air, buying him time to shiver and retch and for the gun to recharge. 

He had to get up. Had to shoot. 

Clint's head hurt. He waited for the hum under his hands to get fast and impatient, then struggled back up, lined up another shot, and fired. The line of cars slammed together like dominoes, right before the light washed them from view.

The gun was amazing. Clint could forgive Wade a lot, if he got to keep it. Maybe he _could_ make a good criminal. 

He was seriously considering it when a different hum started. Aircraft, and coming in fast. A jet shape that Clint would recognize anywhere, and just in time to wrap up Wade's mess for him, the wily bastard. 

It probably wasn't too hard to zero in on the action, with the house going like a beacon fire. For a second, Clint wondered if Terry was going to screech the jet down, but within seconds it was sending leaves and earth and bits of mashed grass blowing across what was left of the yard and against the car and against Clint, sending grit into his mouth and eyes.

And then the siren wail kicked up again and Clint tucked his head between his hands and held on. The air turned to pressure around him, then to wind, then light flashed in retaliation. 

There was no way the little two door was going to provide enough protection from the return flash-fire. As soon as Theresa stopped for a breath, Clint grabbed the rifle and ran--or crawled and stumbled, really--towards the burning house and the shelter of its stone foundation. Maybe it would have a door he could duck through. Maybe into a basement. Clint was willing to take his chances with the housefire more than with a thug syndicate that he may or may not have executed members of. 

He didn't make it. Light flashed again. Something passed over head--bigger than Theresa, smaller than a quinjet--and crashed into the ground beyond him. The end of Theresa's little two door, and Clint had enough time to feel bad for it before something zoomed past in the opposite direction, towards the barricade. Clint groaned. Rolled onto his back, unsure when he'd even hit the ground, and listened to shouting and shooting and what sounded like metal crunching, and to Theresa's high wail.

Sucked in this maybe as clueless and unwillingly as Clint had been. 

Then he thought, _fuck it_ , and _fucking Wade_ , and closed his eyes.

\-----

This time when he opened them, he was still lying where he'd fallen, staring up into shadow. It was kind of pleasant after all the flashing, until Clint's eyes focused and he could make out red boots and, hazily above that, a vague star shape.

Even blurry, Steve looked pretty heroic with the light behind him and from this low angle. Rimlit in orange by the fire still flickering somewhere off to Clint's left.

Clint let his head roll, until it came up against Steve's foot, then slurred, "Hey, Cap. How're the good guys?" and grinned. For no real reason. 

Steve got bigger. Closer. Getting down to his knees, Clint realized, to touch his face and feel carefully over his shirt. Clint tried to swat him away, realized he was still holding the gun, and let it slide out of his fingers so he could push Steve back without the risk of accidentally shooting him in the face.

Steve looked pretty unhappy about it. Maybe about the small gang war Clint had apparently helped to start, and it didn't look like _it was an accident_ was likely to fly with him _or_ with Fury, so Clint didn't try to explain. Just sighed an, "I tried, okay." 

He wasn't sure it came out as actual words, because Steve's reaction was to look worried and say, "Easy, Clint. Let me see." He still sounded like they were both underwater, voice swimming in and out and he was still tugging at Clint's shirt.

"Avenging was nice," Clint told him, apologetically, and tried to say something about being _banditos_ now that Steve didn't react to. 

Instead he said, "Don't move," and pushed the gun further out of reach before going for the hem of Clint's shirt again. This time Clint let him. Hissed when Steve's fingers nudged at the edges of sore flesh.

"Ow." It was a clear whine. He'd learned a lot from Wade.

"Okay, okay. Just lie still."

It was a good idea. Steve wasn't the Captain for no reason, but after a bit another shape came into sight, hovering over him, then coming close the way Steve had. Growing bigger in his vision and glowing painfully at its center. Confusing the fuck out of him, until Tony's voice suddenly said, "Good thing you're a lousy shot, Widow," and following that with, "How're you doing, buddy? You look like roadkill."

Clint tried to repeat his _banditos_ explanation, but couldn't remember what it had been. Asked, "Wade?" instead.

"Helping Thor turn off the house. I think. Or teaching Hulk mahjong. Who the hell knows. Just relax." Then the discussion turned into a garbled exchange, mostly between Steve and Tony, but with interjections from Nat, which left Clint alone to get fidgety about how close they were and how loud and how it was making him feel claustrophobic and overwhelmed after mostly just driving around for weeks listening to whalesong and taking long naps in the backseat while Wade drove.

And stopped to steal bits of hazardous experimental weaponry now and then, but he hadn't been worrying about that much at the time.

"You need anything?" Steve asked, still from too close, and with his hand still on Clint's hip to keep him from trying to get up, "Tony can get it."

Clint swallowed. Tried pushing him off again, then gave up. "Wade's girlfriend threw out my cds," he said, but Steve didn't get the significance.

\-----

Wade, like an asshole, made himself scarce and didn't stick around to provide explanations. Clint could understand that. He knew what it was like to live on the wrong side of the law and erring on the side of getting out of Dodge was a pretty reasonable policy to maintain. 

He felt like an idiot for holding a grudge about it. It wasn't like he _wanted_ to continue being held against his will.

But it would have been nice to have answers for Steve and SHIELD beyond what they'd already put together on their own, but all he really had was a series of fairly incoherent reviews about the rest stops of America, and a rough estimate of how many days one could likely survive on a diet of cheese puffs, orange soda, and nothing else.

At least he was being held in a proper hospital room and not some shitty medical-ed up cell back at SHIELD. 

"So you shot a prince, some mafia guys, a businessman," Tony informed him, lounging with his feet up on the bed and crossed at the ankle. Thin cardboard box on his lap and coffee on Clint's nightstand. The room was too quiet, and if Tony was a pain in the ass, his chatter also felt familiar and soothing and like something Clint could knock into the background and doze off to. "Natasha really didn't mean to indirectly toss you to the underworld, by the way. The shooting you part, you'll have to ask about yourself. Donut?"

Clint looked over. Made a face. "Pass."

"Huh. Okay." Tony was mostly there to quiz him about the gun, Clint was pretty sure. Tony didn't look like he'd had any intention to actually share, and he didn't make any more attempts to. Clint wondered who had the gun. He didn't think Wade had come back to get. He was pretty sure Wade had taken his girl and pissed off as soon as it was tactically feasible to. 

Or maybe he had just pissed off on his own. Clint wasn't really sure and hadn't asked. No one had volunteered to fill him in either. Not beyond _surgery_ and _keep you for observation_ , which Clint half suspected meant something more along the lines of _review your mental autonomy_.

Clint closed his eyes. Had a weird moment of moving-not-moving, and almost felt spots of sunlight flickering over his face, but he couldn't feel the hum of an engine or the irregular bumping of a poorly maintained road. 

Opened his eyes and focused on Tony to banish the phantom sensation. 

"I don't know anything," he said. He thought he'd said that a lot by now, but maybe had just thought it. "There was," a millhouse a burger joint the place where Wade had caved and bought him a sandwich. An unexpectedly simple plan to use the Avengers as backup firepower. "Fuck," Clint finished, incoherently.

Tony grinned. Made gross smacking noise as he licked powdered sugar off his fingers. "We missed you," he said, between it, then amended, " _Cap_ missed you."

That was nice. "Yeah," Clint told the ceiling, because he didn't feel like looking at Tony anymore. "Me and my new criminal record." There was the guy he'd killed on the rooftop, for one. It probably sounded like a subject change, but Tony didn't seem to notice.

"You had one already. Why? Is the dark side still seducing you?"

Clint glared. Tony raised a donut in what might have been a toast, might have been a salute.

"Well then. Problem solved," he said and stuffed it into his mouth. Clint made a face, but if his grease and sugar tolerance wasn't back to normal, at least his fever was gone, along with most of the after effects of having been left to bake on a rooftop. Like some kind of bad trip, the whole Wade orchestrated murder spree part of the misadventure might as well never have happened.

Right up until he found himself pulled off the street into a mail van weeks later, and a sack tossed over his head. Even on probation and dressed like a civilian he was an abduction magnet. It was good that they were excusing his crimes and letting him stay an Avenger, because he probably wouldn't survive on his own for that long, with no one duty bound to come find him.

"I don't really want to do evil bidding," Clint tried, "I'm still on medical leave." 

" _Evil_ bidding?" Clint recognized that hurt and offended tone. The note of almost convincing shock. "Maybe morally _dubious_ bidding. Maybe _gray area ethics_ bidding. Maybe _justifiable in the name of the greater good_ bidding."

"Thanks for getting me shot then getting me shot with an alien light cannon, then _ditching me_ ," Clint said. Yelled, maybe. At least that last part. Wade patted his head.

"There, there. Calm down. And I didn't get you shot. That first time. And I came back for you. I had a foot to regenerate."

How that took longer than the time he'd had to regenerate his entire, actual life, Clint wasn't sure. Instead of asking about it, he went with, "What's with the fucking sack? I know who you are." 

"That's why I'm here. Loose ends."

" _What_?"

Wade patted him again. "Kidding. I'm _kidding_. _Re_ -lax. I thought you knew that joke?" Clint didn't answer. Would have tried bite him if he hadn't had the sack over his head, and only belatedly realized that his hands were free and he could remove it. 

He didn't want to examine that reflex--or lack of reflex--too closely.

"I sent Captain America a thank you note," Wade said, "for the sniper loan. I threw in some flowers. Maybe a cupcake and an objective review of your sidekicking skills, but I thought you'd want your stuff. You leave things all over the place. Honestly, if your head wasn't attached, I don't even know what you'd do."

Clint tugged the sack loose from around his neck. "If you're trading back for your shirt, I bled all over it. I think someone burnt it." 

No answer. When Clint pulled the sack off and tossed it away, the mail van was empty. It was pretty impressive escaping. Real smooth, leaving no sign that Wade had been there other than a small box entirely covered in layers of self-adhesive stamps.

Clint frowned. Tore through the stickers with a thumbnail to find the violin cds, the handgun Wade had given him then taken back, and parts he recognized from the stolen rifle, along with what looked like a treasure map drawn in ballpoint and a list of locations and names.

Those last two definitely weren't his, and probably weren't even meant for him. 

"Is this your fucking loose ends? What am I supposed to do with this?" he yelled at the roof of the van, just in case, but Wade was gone. Or not answering. Who the fuck knew. 

Clint sighed. Gave himself a minute to glare into the box, then got his phone out. Said, "Cap? Guys? I think we've got mail. It might be an invite. You wanna go on a trip?" and climbed into the front seat to put some music on while he waited for the team to get there.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Backcountry Soundtrack [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7700122) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton), [SomethingIncorporeal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingIncorporeal/pseuds/SomethingIncorporeal)
  * [Backcountry Soundtrack](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7839745) by [helva2260](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helva2260/pseuds/helva2260)




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